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Waking Up is Hard to Do
Waking Up is Hard to Do
By
Cognitive Dissonance
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Do you remember when you first woke up, that point when it all became frighteningly clear to you? I certainly don’t, and if rigorous honesty is employed I doubt you do as well.
I make this statement with a high degree of certainty based not just upon my own personal experience, but from countless conversations over the years. Stated simply, ‘waking up’ is not an on/off switched event, but rather a process of slowly clearing away the fog of self deception and comforting illusion. Just as we do not instantly wake from our overnight slumber fully aware and properly functioning, so too do we fail to shake off decades of deep social conditioning and propaganda in an instant.
Sure, during this awakening process there are lightening strikes of clarity and revelation that stop us dead in our tracks while sickening the stomach and weakening the legs. The most devastating of these bolts from the blue are usually self revelatory and rarely joyful events. In fact I still suffer from these ‘First Light’ events to this day. The only thing worse than being caught naked to the world is to be exposed to our ‘self’ devoid of comforting emotional cover.
It is the height of childish thinking, something I am guilty far too often of, to believe we can wipe away in days, weeks or even months what has been carefully and painstakingly crafted within our psyche (what we think of as our ‘self’) over decades; our entire lifetime in fact. The ego does not easily concede its manipulative techniques nor lift its concealing veils willingly and without a ferocious fight.
That emotional stab in the gut you feel when you reach a recognition point is your ego falsely telling you ‘here be dragons’. The trick, if further progress is sincerely desired, is to stay the course and endure further emotional pain rather than run for the hills and continue to hide from the self.
A common misconception, maybe even self deception, pertaining to our corporate and governmental masters is the idea ‘they’ somehow trick ‘us’ into doing things contrary to our own best interest. I deliberately use the word ‘trick’ in this case since others, myself included, dress it up (lipstick on a pig anyone?) by calling it manipulation, propaganda and implied consent. While those words accurately describe the larger overall picture of what’s going on under the covers, in fact the techniques employed are not speaking directly to ‘us’, but rather to our ego and subconscious ‘self’.
Like the master puppeteer carefully hidden above by darkness, heavy curtains and the prancing distraction below, the ego wants us to ‘believe’ the thoughts, ideas and ‘beliefs’ (aka ‘truth’) we profess as ours are actually ‘ours’. Thus ‘we’ are as vulnerable to circumvention as the Maginot Line was and tragically ignorant of our own defenseless condition. Sadly most, if not all, of us are willfully ignorant of our own vulnerability because to examine that particular line of thought requires we open the entire can of self revelation whoop ass. And as we all know too well by now ‘here be dragons’ so why even try.

Here be Dragons
Essentially our own desire to avoid the inner dragons is expertly used against us by outside forces who present suspect information, often presented as irrefutable ‘fact’, precisely designed to mesh with, while leveraging, our ego’s own efforts to shield us from what the ego perceives as harmful to us. But make no mistake about it, the ego does not arbitrarily decide what is and is not harmful to us. Often it takes the lead from our popular culture, both the intimate one conditioned into us by our immediate family as well as the culture the general population ‘agrees’ upon as the way things should be. More and more these days this agreement is derived through mass media sources, in particular television or ‘social’ media.
For those who wish to dispute this assertion I point towards the huge impact advertising, most assuredly a form of effective mind (ego) control, has upon you and me. Speak to any expert in psychology, also known as someone deeply involved in creating advertisement, and they will quickly list the various methods used to induce (trick?) you to do, which usually means purchase, things you might not normally do. The same applies to the purveyors of propaganda.
While I will quickly admit not all techniques are effective on all people, this simple ‘fact’ allows us the egoic wiggle room needed to convince ourselves advertisement/propaganda, and more specifically the psychological techniques underlying advertisement/propaganda, is not nearly as effective as it truly is. The Maginot Line’s impenetrability is once again confirmed, deftly enabling its circumvention at any time.
Why is it we can often see when others are being lied to while we are often (self) deceived and fail to see what others perceive is clearly obvious? What’s that ‘we’ say? We aren’t fooled anymore now that ‘we’ are ‘awake’? The very fact we believe this tells us and many others we aren’t as awake as we think we are or would like to be. As stated before, our/the/an awakening is a lengthy process and not a short onetime event. Or stated more accurately, the process of awakening is a series of steps taken towards a wider range of awareness.
During a significant and profound ‘awakening’ one ‘truth’ stands out among all others. The more we think we know, either by way of an ongoing ‘discovery’ of the self or (and more likely) a sudden recognition of what was always there but never truly or fully ‘seen’ until now, is the realization we have barely scratched the surface. The more I think I know the more I know I do not know. Many of us, me included, are barely past the first and second steps on our way up a long and winding staircase towards a wider and more encompassing understanding.
I may have had an ‘awakening’ to something general or specific, meaning my awareness is now (more) focused on something it previously was not, which in turn leads me to a new (notice I did not say better) understanding. But to flat out declare the achievement of (now) being ‘awake’, implying there is no further awakening needed, is little more than egoic chest thumping and narcissistic delusions.
I may even have undergone several of these ‘awakenings’ in rapid fire progression, one setting off the next and the next and the next similar to a chain reaction of dominoes falling. But to believe I have arrived and am now fully awake is pure folly and the ultimate in self deception. One does not progress from not knowing to all knowing just like that, even if the process has evolved over weeks or months.

"The Awakening" by J. Seward Johnson, Jr
Contrary to the popular belief ‘we’ are in control of our mind and therefore our awareness, our ego is actually filtering and processing much, if not all, of what we see, read, hear, feel, touch, smell and thereby think. Since it is our brain which actually interprets what enters our five (six?) senses, and our ego constantly monitors everything coming in and going out with the intent of ‘shielding’ us from whatever it is ‘we’ might find disconcerting, disorienting or disruptive, to state categorically we are ‘aware’ is, well, at the very least wildly egotistic and at most the epitome of narcissistic arrogance and hubris.
Consider for a moment the idea that ‘me and my ego’ are not the same ‘person’ and that my ego quite often works at cross purposes to what is truly in my best interest. While one might argue over what exactly is in my/our best interest, and I would join that discussion with dread because it is a circular argument at best, I suspect if ‘We the People’ were individually polled with no fear of recrimination or exposure, many would say what exists today is not in ‘our’ best interest.
That ‘voice’ I ‘hear’ in my head is almost always considered to be me, myself and I. Unless, of course, I am insane as determined by a presumably sane and disinterested party. Meaning as far as most are concerned they are talking to their ‘self’. After all, who else could it be other than ‘the’ self? But what if that voice I hear speaking to me is not ‘me’ in the literal sense when thinking about ‘me’? What if that voice I hear is actually my ego, essentially a foreign entity always lurking in the background skillfully using its disguise as ‘me’ to play ‘me’ to the hilt?
If this were the case, imagine how easily manipulated (tricked?) I would be both by my ‘ego’ as well as by outside forces that recognize the dominant role my ego plays in my everyday life. Those outside forces would most certainly play to my egoic entity in order to control and manipulate ‘me, myself and I’. More importantly, if ‘my’ ego is exposed to the ‘self’ for what it truly is, a severe and debilitating emotional crisis would instantly develop, thereby undermining both the ego and the ‘self’. Essentially ‘we’ would experience an identity crisis. Clearly the ego would see this as a danger and shield ‘us’ from this information, if for no other reason than self survival.
My ego ‘knows’ it is not ‘me’, thus it is under no self delusion as to the danger my discovery of this fact would be both to my emotional stability and, by extension, to the ego’s existence. The egoic parasite most certainly wishes to protect the host (‘me’) from self destruction if at all possible since the egoic entity cannot exist without the ‘self’, both in a physical and intellectual sense. If my ‘self’ is beginning the awakening process and, from the perspective of my ego, this process cannot be stopped, wouldn’t it be in the best interest of the ego (and therefore also for my ‘self’) both to limit my awakening and also to convince my ‘self’ the process is complete and there is no more work left to be done?
This would be quite easily accomplished since I still believe that voice in my head is ‘me’. The ego only needs to fill my ‘self’ with ‘egotistic’ nonsense about having finally arrived now that I can clearly see what could not be seen before, coupled with self righteous declarations of superiority over the deaf, dumb and blind ‘plebs’, the ranks from which I have now successfully liberated myself. Add in a healthy dose of absolute certainty and closed mindedness to the possibility I might actually be just as blind as before (if not more so since I have now abolished doubt from my mind and vocabulary) and the egoic transformation from unknowing slave to ‘awakened’ slave is complete.
But of course ‘I’ haven’t fallen for that trap, now have I?

Cubicle Slavery
This is precisely how alternative thinking and the contrary organizations that spring up to support and echo alternative thinking is skillfully subverted and derailed by the mainstream and its handlers/controllers. If I am someone or something in a position of power who wishes to remain in power in the face of a rising tide of popular uproar, all I need to do is ‘talk’ to the ego by any means possible (usually the alternative ‘press’) in order to play ‘us’ like a fiddle. I don’t need to defeat the uprising, just deflect it enough so it turns upon itself, destroying it ‘self’ from within in the same manner ‘my’ ego deflects and subverts ‘me’ in order to protect me.
Brilliant! Simply brilliant! And a technique, I might add, which has withstood the test of time, having been successfully used against our ‘selves’ for millennium by both the ego and those outside powers who wish to control ‘us’, principally by leveraging our ego against our ‘selves’. ‘Knowing’ what I have just laid out is even the slightest bit possible, how can anyone reading this declare with any degree of certainty they have now arrived and are ‘awake’?
The greatest trick the devil ego ever pulled was convincing ‘us’ it does not exist, that any questioning of our ‘self’ (in this case the ego), any significant self reflection or introspection, any digging in the emotional grave yard to unearth layer upon layer of self deception, is a sure sign of weakness and must be avoided at all cost. In truly Orwellian doublespeak our ego ‘tells’ us ignorance is strength by hiding our continuing ignorance behind the veil of self righteous certainty in our awakening, of our knowing beyond all doubt. This is aided and abetted by the clear ignorance of many others in the one or two specific subjects we now see more clearly, such as the financial Ponzi or the growing police state.
Any Cognitive Dissonance experienced over this issue is quickly swept away by the induced (egoic) feelings of superiority over nearly all others. I’ve nothing more to learn since I am already (fully) awake. Any minor details missed are just a matter of more research and most certainly not introspection. Thus the function of public fall guys and useful idiots in positions of power is revealed for their true purpose, to give us a reason to stop digging, to confirm our ‘belief’ we now ‘see’ clearly without subterfuge and obstruction. It’s even better if we can ‘see’ a layer or two deeper into the rabbit hole than others, thereby avoiding the need to look even deeper.
Ask any representative of “We the People” if they are ‘aware’ and you will receive nary a negative in response. The ego within would never allow ‘us’ to admit we are unaware or even less than fully aware, particularly in a public setting, for the cultural response would be overwhelmingly embarrassing. Knowing the public ridicule we would receive if our ignorance were ever made public, the ego helpfully ‘suggests’ we refrain from even entertaining the possibility in the ultimate of private settings, when talking to our ‘self’. Remember, here be dragons. Besides, even if this were true before, I’m now ‘awake’ thereby eliminating any possibility of present or future ignorance.
At the present time there are seven billion permutations of this internal con game, this viral madness, with no end ‘in-sight’. It is a spiritual and cultural dis-ease that thoroughly infects the individual, which in turns (re)infects the culture in a positive feedback loop of monstrous proportions.
This is why I endlessly repeat the same mantra again and again and again. To defeat the enemy without we must first look deeply within so we may finally recognize our supporting role in the greatest self con game the world has ever seen. The madness we see in all others clearly resides within.
01-14-2015
Cognitive Dissonance
How awake are we?

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Graham Parker - "Between You And Me" 1976
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OASHzUCWuI
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Graham Parker - 'Hey Lord Don't Ask Me Questions'
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once one wakes up,
try gettin' back to sleep ....
.
Graham Parker - Pourin' It All Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN6D48tFIto
Ego gets a bad wrap. What if you are that good? Are you to listen to all the BS and let it pass? I say no it serves a good perpose. At some point one must be a grown up and tell it like ya see it.
Its fun to watch others eat shit, but come on, Lawn Darts, Really? Somebody has to be the grown up.
Ego is a funny thing. Thats why I like to laugh at mine.
When I do so 'my' ego becomes quite insecure. :-)
Awakening is a process, not a destination. I thank you for your post and appreciated it!
When ego meets the articulate but camp "Eddie Bernays" and conscience grows an unwelcome "second skin"!
As an individual living with many social interactions throughout a lifetime, the ego either learns "right" from "wrong" in it's development over time and knows the thresholds never to cross between the two or it doesn't!
A fine read. Thx
Waking up to the reality of externalities, as more is the case refered in replies here, is different to waking up to the reality of one's own true nature - the internal.
Roger that. You nicely summarized the entire article.
Want a (non-paying) job at Cogville? :-)
God=infinate=all is equal
love=hate
Hitler= Gandhi
banker=prepper
nothing=everything
My awakening happened in 2010 after I read the book Aftershock. Then I went out and bought some gold and silver and started frantically reading goldseek.com. Then I read Secrets of the Federal Reserve by Mullins. Then watched Money as Debt and the Money Masters on youtube. I read End the Fed by Ron Paul, Web of Debt by Ellen Brown, and the Case Against the Fed by Rothhbard. In between there was lots of time spent on ZeroHedge and marketoracle.co.uk. I had daliances reading Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, This Time is Different, and When Money Dies.
In a lot of ways seeing reality for the first time was painful and wrenching. Everything I thought I knew was wrong or based on lies and BS. I now have some peace that I recognize the Beast. The powers that be want to protect their system of extortion and indeed want to cram down a global debt based currency - the SDR - to truly capture the world. I may not be able to do much about it but I know there are alternatives to the Beast. I also recognize that this shit show is just that. A show. A grand illusion. We see through a dark glass and fight against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places. If you believe Revelations in the Bible its reading like a template of whats to come.
In a lot of ways, its finally good to be awake but its taken a few years to digest and acheive peace with the length and depth of the fraud we are presented every day.
I read those books as an exercise in filling in the details. My education (from my father, not the schools) led me to the overview.
As someone who reads the Bible, (and read and write SF) I've sometimes wondered how many times the world has cycled... how many times we've been through all this before... and when after the bombs and starvation and elimination of the technology wipes most of the people off the face of the planet, how long it takes us to struggle back to where we are now?
Ever read "The Mote In God's Eye" - by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle? Yeah... that kind of thing. And I have recently begun wondering if the Bible/other religious books that go back to pre-Western Civ, and folk/fairy tales are our Motie Museum.
Better - Screaming Jets (Up loud!)
Still didn't know what happened when you knocked upon my door.
The things you had, the life you lived all the dreams you had before.
Your eyes, your face, your heart and soul, you know they said it all.
What happened on that day back then, the moment hurt us all.
Now you can see the reason why not everyone's the same.
And you don't have to please them, or try hard to save your name.
They said you'd never get anywhere, well they don't care and it's just not fair, that you know, and I know better.
They said you'd never get anywhere, well they don't care and it's just not fair, that you know, and I know better.
Yes I do!
Well the weeks go by and you wonder why, "is this really true?"
Your heart said "No!" but your feelings show the whole thing you never knew.
But you and I, we knew deep down, that ain't really you.
We always knew that it'd work out right and we could start a new.
Now you can see the reason why not everyone's the same.
And you don't have to please them, or try hard to save your name.
They said you'd never get anywhere, well they don't care and it's just not fair, that you know, and I know better.
They said you'd never get anywhere, well they don't care and it's just not fair, that you know, and I know better.
Well things ain't always what they seem, so wake up, and get outta your dreams, things ain't always what they seem, SO! ...
W A K E U P !
Well things ain't always what they seem, wake up man, you're in my dreams! Things ain't always! ...
Oh now you can see the reason why not everyone's the same!
And you don't have to please them, or try hard! ...
They said you'd never get anywhere, well they don't care and it's just not fair, that you know, and I know better.
They said you'd never get anywhere, well they don't care and it's just not fair, that you know, and I know better.
ONE, two, three, four! They said you'd never get anywhere!
Well they don't care and it's just not fair, you're never gonna get anywhere, ...
THAT'S ...WHAT .. THEY TELL ME!
Never, never, never, never, never, never, never gonna get anywhere! They don't care, and that's not fair!
They said you'd never get anywhere, they don't care and it's just not fair, that you know, and I know ...
BETTER!!! ..."
Here's to waking up... http://bit.ly/14CLHri
Thanks for your post,Cog.
Any attempt to reach the truth of "who and what i really am",is appreciated,
particularly by those who know that they don't know it all already.
Thank you.
I suspect some readers think I am lecturing them. In fact I am lecturing myself in public. It is my hope others will join in the self examination and slip me a few of their insights. No sense doing it completely alone when there are plenty out there willing to help.
This is why the comment section under my article, and not the article itself, is where the good stuff can be found.
Cog, no matter how dark the minds and hearts of people, and events of the world are, or seem, there are genuinely beautiful natural things that make it retreat to nothing, and seem the nothing that it is.
Torn - Natalie Imbruglia (turn it up!)
"... So I guess the fortune teller's right
Should have seen just what was there
And not some holy light
It crawled beneath my veins
And now I don't care, I had no luck
I don't miss it all that much
There's just so many things
That I can touch, I'm torn
I'm all out of faith
This is how I feel
I'm cold and I am shamed
Lying naked on the floor
Illusion never changed
Into something real
I'm wide awake and I can see
The perfect sky is torn
You're a little late ... I'm already torn ..."
____
Is this too blunt?
U G Krishnamurti Interviewed by Donald Ingram Smith, Sydney, March, 1990
While there might be carnage in the FX pits this morning with the Swiss CB removing the peg I sit here looking out the window at a stunning sunrise. Sort of puts it all in perspective.
I love it when you can hear the faint sounds from miles away.
I am outside every morning near sunrise filling the wood stove boiler and I always stop for a moment and listen to 'morning'.
We live on the edge of the Blue Ridge plateau and our back property line is on the edge of a cliff where the world just drops nearly straight down for a quarter mile. About 6 - 7 miles away is another ridge line and some ongoing development on the top.
There are times in the morning when I can hear conversations from that far away, at times even making out the actual words being said. And these are not shouted words, but normal person to person voices I hear 7 miles away in the stillness of the morning.
Amazing.
You have one of those backyard stoves that won't work if the power goes out? I elected to put my stove inside and bring the wood in... where I can also get the mental warmth of the fire (glass door), and stand in front of it to toast my buns on a cold morning. And I only have to go outside to the wood shed about once or twice a week - not every day/multiple times a day. And it works just fine if the power goes out.
You might want to consider putting an inside electric-free stove in.... I've a feeling that power outages will become increasingly frequent in the near future.
Solar power now runs the outside stove and the air circulator/handler in the house. And I agree power outages will become more frequent as time marches on.
Yeah, atmospheric 'ducting' via thermal and moisture layering. It's a beautiful thing. I can hear the geckos small territorial 'croaking' sounds from miles away in the early hours. When you really listen you realize why dogs can hear so well, they don't have the noise of a brain's thinking to keep distracting them. It atrophies all of our senses, and we don't even realize it until we start to listen closely to things again. I love hearing the sound of the crunch of a single small bit of gravel between the treads of a well inflated tire on the highway ... from miles away! Goes right through you, clear as a bell.
Mutant Shrimp Caught in Japan, Looks Like a Fukushima Radiation Effect
http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/2015/01/mutant-shrimp-caught-in-japan-looks.html
I am always amazed at the strength of will, the time, the concentration, the relaxation, the focus, the fearlessness it takes to delve into those deep dark festering pockets of protected, guarded, DARK pockets deep in the soul that do not like to be disturbed much less dug out and excised; screaming and throwing tantrums the entire time and trying to convince you that you can not live without them because "they are YOU". Yea though I walk through the valley of death. Very hard but really very simple, as most hard things are. It is a CHOICE. I have the power to choose. Thanks Mr. Cog.
When I am righteously indignant about.....whatever, I try to remind myself it is all about choice. I always have a choice in how I react to something. While 'they' can march me off at the point of a gun, they can't make me react emotionally. That is exclusively my domain, an admission most refuse to make since that would suddenly 'make' them responsible for themselves.
I wrote about this in.....You Can't Make Me
If someone tries to "march you off at the point of a gun..." you still have the option of saying "no." Sure... they can shoot you, but that's THEIR choice.
Comp will not allow a +1 but I give you a +10. Excellent.
may I walk in beauty
and with your help
overcome my greatest enemy
myself
~little steven
good post cog!
Anyone who has ever had an experience of temporary ego death would be able to tell you all too well about how invasive, controlling and downright scary the ego can be. For most it's hard to even see the distinction - ask the question 'who are you?' - the common answer goes along the lines of 'I'm my thoughts, hopes, fears, passions' etc.
Ok. So who is observing those thoughts?
The sorting it out part is key. Once you get it sorted out in your head that you have been willingly lead astray. It starts to fit better.
The real progress came when I grasped that it was not that people will lie right to my face. Because people are human. No the real issue is why on earth did I fall for it? I wanted to believe or have faith in people. My guess is for the most part those people did not know it was a lie. Sure some did and Boy would I like to settle up with them. The ones that should have known better. Humble pie is in thier future. Prolly in all our futures.
One way to save on friends is to ask them a simple question. Do you really believe in that statment? Then just wait for the real answer. Most will balk at first. Give um time. Most the honest ones will come back with a Big resounding NO! They have started chewwing on it. Its much better if it slowly sinks in. Thats way better than running into it at full speed.
Many good people are about to run right into it at full speed WOT.
I find it appalling that I'm working on the sorting out part...then get let myself believe something that I should have rejected. Newtown, for instance. The Malaysian jet shot down...it's hard to stay on point every second.
Then there's that "I'm still an idiot" moment.
Is that Don Valley VW Andy? Interesting comments. I too had great difficulty first believing and then accepting that people lie (I more than 95% of the time can't). Also realising that many who have become more "successful" than I (more senior job, bigger paycheck, more toys) got their by lying about their accomplishments, or stepping on others, or playing politics. It took me a long time to realise what truly makes me feel happy, and it is not a bigger paycheck, more admiration by others, but simply feeling happy myself, loving and being loved by friends and family, and being comfortable feeling useful in my job, and having time off to enjoy my leisure.
Still, I know that over the years I have given much to others as all I wanted is for them to progress and be happy. And in that giving, I got back so much more.
No Im out of LA. It turns out there are a bunch of VWAndy guys around. Funny thing some of us are very similar in many ways. Its a head scratcher.
I saw men existing in a similar cubicle Hell more than a half century ago at Grumman Aircraft. I said NO.
What do we know? Nothing but what we copy from others' perceptions.
Should I allow myself to be drafted into an army and die while under the control of others? What glory is in stupidity? NO.
The superego is a construct from our indoctrinated training. Should I trust my indoctrinators? NO.
I watched, while in college, my father die before he retired, never to do all he hoped and planned to do. I said NO to hope and YES to doing it now.
Bernays showed how most do not think, but find ego security in imitation and consensus. NO to control by consensus.
YES is consent. NO is freedom.
I do remember my first memory. I find that I interesting.
Speech is interesting too.
We do have FEELINGS. Very interesting that Charles Darwin wrote a book about that. If we are all about the ego and the id why do we have "feelings"? Certainly goes against the whole " Darwinian dog eat dog" thing.
I find Detroit interesting...and cars. They promote the idea that we should have "feelings" towards our car. I find that interesting.
Certainly we are mortal.
Certainly we must sleep.
If you didn't remember it, it wouldn't be a memory.
Darwin had nothing to do with dog eat dog.
As for mortality and sleep, I would have to agree.
If you didn't remember it, it wouldn't be a memory.
Hummm.... should this have been posted by "Obviousman?" Sure... Logicalman saw it and took the shot... so it works. Good thing Obviousman isn't territorial! ;-D
Good stuff Cog.
The older I get, the more strange 'reality' becomes. Personally, I pray that ignorance (ours) might actually be the basis of Divine Mercy?
I speculate that 'time' is very much actually a fabric.
Time, like God clearly exist and yet neither time nor God can be definitively known except by direct experience NOW (to late).
Hopefully on a long enough timeline.....
Can you explain to me what you mean by 'God'?
I'd really appreciate any logical thought on that.
It's a word that really messes with any sensible approach to anything.
How about - "God is the presence that predated and created the universe we live in, everything in it, and what we understand as "dimensions", and will still exist after it's all gone."
I personally also believe that "God" is omnipresent (in time as well as space), and that God is aware of us as individuals and "cares" what we do and how we do it.
And you can get all of that "doctrine" from Genesis 1:1
I'd like to take a crack at that----- God is existance, all that is. Unless you think that somehow you, I and everything in the Universe just happened to pop up out of thin air. Then I suppose you might also think that if a tornado went through a junk yard, you could end up with a 747. We'll all get our answers soon enough.....me, I'm in no hurry to find out
C.S. Lewis once stated something like this - If there is no God then why is there right or wrong. I find that fascinating but for most, they never even give it a thought.
thinner than air, space.
question is, did dark matter exist before the multiverse?
OK. I will bite, LM.
God = Love
Can you handle that much?
unconditional love
if man is a tight rope walker,
god is the rope.
there are other metaphors.
Dear Cog Diss...
Not only are you correct but you risk some of the comments from the unconscious that you have received. They don't know what they don't know. They think they are awake yet you can tell their ego is damaged when they reject the notion.
This is how I would have reacted years ago. My awakening occurred after getting sober and digesting the "four agreements" with "a new earth" for a chaser. Very humbling to look back on your life and think about all of the stupid shit you did while obeying your false sense of self.
The two most important moments in a man's life. The moment he was born and the moment he realizes why.
My awakening continues.
At first, many years ago, I worried about this. Doesn't it stop somewhere so I may finally rest and enjoy the fruits of my labors? But then I realized the reward was in the journey and not the destination. So I travel on.
As Robert Frost once wrote, "But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep". The promises I have to keep are those made to myself to keep moving forward regardless how futile or minutely incremental they may seem. Even movement backwards is forward progress since many time more lessons are learned from dead end alleys than brightly lit highways.
Thank you for commenting and leaving your mark.
A fantastic article but I suspect alot of what you have posted will go over the heads of many posters, what you've written will only make sense to those who taken their personal/self development to a far far deeper level and are secure with their identity, alot of people are very insecure with their identity and it is these people who will either willfully pretend not to understand or will deride the information you've posted as esoteric hogwash. Btw how familiar are you with the works of Carl Jung and the idea of the dialogic self?